“The annual GDP rates will be more optimistic than the rates of these seven months; I think that the annual rate of decline will reach 12.5-13%,” said former head of the CB Bagrat Asatryan and explained that it was not conditioned by any positive tendencies in the economy or the anti-crisis policy on part of the incumbent government. “In July 2009 the GDP slump rates were so high because we had a high economic growth. However, as the economic growth was lower due to the Russian-Georgian conflict in August 2008, it means that the GDP decline rate will be lower than 18.5% in January-August 2009. According to the same logic, if there was a decline of 20% during the last three months of 2008, the decline rate should be lower this year because if even it reaches 17-18%, the decline will seem lower than in the previous period,” he said.
